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A coal mine in Wyoming, United States. The United States has the world's largest coal reserves. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s a big day for coal-fired power plants, which will formally learn the Obama administration’s plans on how they are to be regulated. The proposal, which if enacted, would set strict limits on carbon dioxide releases that would essentially nullify the future construction of coal facilities.

That’s at least until carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) would become commercial. That’s not possible now. But what is possible is to capture the carbon dioxide (CO2) from power plants and to it use for enhanced oil recovery. That tool, however, is not without controversy: Critics say that pumping such heat-trapping emissions into the ground only so that they could be used to extract a product that releases even more such global warming pollution is a bit silly.

“Leaving the CO2 underground is of no ultimate benefit for climate stabilization when additional hydrocarbons have been extracted in exchange,” says Jeffrey Michel, an MIT scholar and environmental professional living in Germany. Michel, who is a contributor to EnergyBiz Insider, goes on to say that injecting 1 ton of carbon dioxide will yield 3.6 barrels of crude oil. That, in turn, creates 1.4 tons of carbon dioxide when refined and burned.

That said, the thinking among some climate scholars is that taking the CO2 and using it to retrieve oil deposits is a better solution than letting it into the atmosphere. And, it is the best answer until the releases can be captured and permanently buried, which the U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz told a congressional panel this week that this happen before 2020.

U.S. lawmakers from coal-producing states are expressing reservations about the Obama administration’s proposals, which would require all future coal plants to be as clean as combined cycle natural gas facilities. Or, technically speaking, today’s coal units spew out about 1,850 pounds of carbon per megawatt hour while the proposal is expected to cap that at 1,000 pounds. To do so, they would need to have the ability to employ CCS.

Moreover, coal producers in the United States, such as , Arch Coal and , will find that oversea’s markets won’t provide long-term refuge. China and India, for example, are also developing much stronger coal regs. China’s coal-burning is to peak at 4 billions tons by 2015, say news reports. After that, it will begin a gradual descent, relying instead on hydro, nuclear and renewables.

Here in the United States, 112 coal plants have been retired since 2010, or soon will be, says Beyond Coal, totaling more than 48,000 megawatts. Doyle Trading Consultants generally agrees, saying 42,000 megawatts are vulnerable to retirement by 2020, 90 percent of which will fade away by 2015. That’s 18 percent of the existing coal-fired fleet.

Domestically, coal’s share of the electric generation market has fallen from 50 percent in 2007 to 40 percent now. But, globally, it is still expected to fuel the developing economies, supplying 60 percent of the power markets through 2035. If the coal sector, however, wants to prevent a precipitous decline in its overall status, it must embrace CCS, and Secretary Moniz says that this country will partner with U.S. utilities and their coal providers.

To that end, CCS for applications related to coal and gas-powered electricity remain hugely expensive, necessitating further research development. So, the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions is pushing carbon capture and utilization -- to increase oil finds.

“CCS is a critical technology for reconciling our continued dependence on fossil fuels with the imperative to protect the global environment,” says Judi Greenwald, vice president for technology at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. “Our best hope at the moment for CCS advancement is carbon capture, utilization and storage,” which takes the captured carbon and uses it for enhanced oil recovery.

She points to two projects: Air Products’ Port Author and Southern Company’s Mississippi venture. The U.S. Department of Energy helped support the Air Products project, where carbon dioxide is captured from a refinery and then used to enhance oil recovery. In late 2012, it began operations. The Energy Department pumped in $284 million of the total $430 million cost. Similarly, the agency is working with . at its facility in Mississippi. Here, the public’s contribution is $290 million. The project is more than 80 percent complete.

The ultimate goal is to permanently bury the carbon. The Energy Department is putting up $1.1 billion or 80 percent of the money to build “FutureGen.” The facility is expected to be 200 megawatts that will retrofit an oil-fueled unit in Meredosia, Illinois. The project is now focused on its preliminary design and engineering. It will capture at least 90 percent of the CO2 emitted, and it will inject all of that underground, the organization explained.

For their part, utilities say that they would eagerly participate with the federal government while it is investing $8 billion in CCS. But they also note that over the last 40 years that they have collectively spent $100 billion on such things as scrubbers and coal gasification. To that end, the industry says that the attention should be on advancing those technologies that are currently commercial -- not in forsaking the progress that has been made.

“Perhaps the federal government should first focus on ensuring the coal industry can economically build second generation plants rather than put a halt to the innovative progress made to date,” says Laura Sheehan, spokeswoman for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. “If the EPA acts as expected, the United States, which is the current global leader of CCS technology, will fall to the back of the innovation race.”